


Lowland Hum

by arsenicarose



Series: DreamNotFound COMFORT Fics [6]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Confessions, Dream is so oblivious and anxious omfg, Fluff and Angst, George can only confess things to Dream while he is sleeping, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious, Pining, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28497282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicarose/pseuds/arsenicarose
Summary: Dream wakes up to hear George whispering something into his chest and does everything he can to figure out what it is.(AKA George can only confess emotions in the dead of night where no one care hear.)
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: DreamNotFound COMFORT Fics [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050791
Comments: 56
Kudos: 758
Collections: MCYT





	Lowland Hum

Dream wasn’t sure when George did it for the first time. Maybe it was when they started cuddling with each other, completely platonically, because they were cold and lonely one night. Maybe it was after they had been cuddling together for a while, and something happened to make George realize his feelings. Maybe, George had been doing it for way longer, since before they had ever moved in together, and Dream just never noticed. George could have been doing it in his head the whole time, but only started it out loud when they moved in with each other.

Dream didn’t know the first time George did it, but he did know the first time he heard it. Hell, maybe that night was the first, and he was just lucky enough to catch it. He was usually a pretty deep sleeper, though, so it seemed unlikely.

Regardless, one night, Dream was a little restless. He had been sleeping, but something woke him up. It could have been George, but he was pretty sure it was something in his dreams.

He opened his eyes to George’s soft brown hair, still neatly tucked into his chin where he had left it. George was curled into Dream’s chest, one arm flung over his waist, and Dream was holding George close to him by the shoulders. 

It was perfect, and Dream had to hold back a little sigh of contentment. The arrangement they had found themselves in was wonderful. Nothing wrong with a couple of homies cuddling their loneliness away. They had talked about it, joked about it, for so long, that when the time came, it just seemed right. Even if it hurt Dream a little to hold the man he loved in his arms almost every night, with no chance of it being requited. 

Dream was tempted to place a secret kiss on George’s forehead, but he quickly realized that the man in his arms was awake. The sounds of the night fell away, and he heard George whispering something to himself, so softly that Dream couldn’t quite make out the words. The only thing he caught was, “if you stay.”

After a while, George fell asleep and left Dream to wonder what he had been saying.

~~~

The next morning, George mentioned nothing of it, and so Dream didn’t either. He had to wait, to see if he could figure out what it was. If he addressed it, George would definitely stop, and he would never know. He only hoped that George would do it again.

That night, Dream crawled into bed as usual, trying to hide the growing anticipation blooming in his gut. He didn’t even know if George would do it again, but his curiosity was driving him wild. What would George do if Dream stayed? Or was it completely unrelated to Dream?

Pretending to be asleep was incredibly difficult. He had a feeling that this was some deep secret that George was whispering into his chest in the dead of night, so George would probably want to make absolutely _sure_ that he was asleep. So he let his breathing relax, and waited, trying to keep everything steady and even.

He ended up passing out before he heard anything.

Frustrated, he tried again, but he fell asleep _again_ , two more times, actually, before he finally gave in and decided to ruin his sleep schedule with a secret Monster right before bed. That made it hard to lie still and breathe evenly, and he worried that it had all been for nothing, as he lay there twitching for what felt like hours.

He was in luck, though. George fell for it. “Dream?” he whispered, gently prodding the chest in front of him, “You awake?”

Dream just kind of let out a mumbled sound, like how he imagined a sleeping person might react to being poked.

“Dream?” After no reaction, George whispered, “I have to confess it to you. I hate Patches so damn much.”

Dream had to fight to keep still, to keep himself from reacting. This was a test, it _had_ to be. George loved his cat.

“Fuck, okay, you’re asleep. Thank God. Sorry Patches!”

That’s what Dream thought.

“God, I don’t know why I keep doing this,” George murmured, right into the shirt in front of him. “It’s the only thing that helps me feel better, but I really need to stop.”

Dream was practically vibrating with anticipation, but he played the part of sleeping man as best he could. 

He needn’t have worried, though. George was completely lost in his feelings. He pulled himself closer to Dream and buried his face deeply into Dream’s chest, before letting out a soft sob.

Dream’s eyes flew open for a moment, desperate to comfort his friend, but he forced himself to relax. That was _not_ how George would want it to be handled. If he found out Dream had been listening, who even knew what would happen? So he just had to lay there, pretending to sleep, while his best friend cried into his shirt.

Then, George started whispering again. The words were barely audible, and some had no sound at all. It had the rhythm of a song, though, which was helpful in narrowing things down. That meant that he could Google the words the next day.

Unfortunately, because of how quiet George was, he was only able to catch two more words, “nothing else,” which came a few lines before “if you stay.” That was better than before, so he considered it a win.

After George finished, he let himself fall asleep in Dream’s arms, and Dream lay there, again wondering what it could mean.

~~~

Googling “nothing else” and “if you stay” came up with nothing. Dream tried it with quotes, without quotes, and in different orders, but there was no song with those lyrics, at least not one he could find. There was one song with the name “Nothing Else” and a bunch of songs named “If You Stay,” but none of the songs had both. Had George written this song himself, or had Dream just imagined it as a song?

It had been hard to explain the sheer exhaustion from that night, especially when George saw a poorly stashed Monster can as he went to recycle a box. There had been sheer terror in the poor man’s eyes at the thought that Dream might have been awake in the night, but Dream promised him it had been from earlier in the day, and that he had slept, just badly. George’s entire body relaxed at that, and it only made Dream more curious.

Unfortunately, Dream wouldn’t have an opportunity to try again for a couple weeks. With the bad sleep from that Monster, the video schedule, and other simple life interruptions, he just couldn’t keep himself awake. Some part of him worried that George wouldn’t even be doing it anymore, so horrified by the mere chance of being caught that he gave it up.

He worried that he would never get to know.

Dream got lucky though. He didn’t even need to try the next time. When George did his test shake one night, Dream somehow woke up, as if he knew he needed to hear it. He managed to grab onto consciousness fast enough to only let out a sleepy mumble and nuzzle deeper into the pillow, before falling still again.

George did the test again, saying he hated Patches, waiting with bated breath, and then, a single sob.

Somehow, Dream got a few more words. Maybe that night was a little quieter, or maybe George was a little louder, but by the end of George’s little ceremony, Dream had another line, “nothing left to say.” He was sure this time, it would be enough.

~~~

“Lowland Hum” by Out Came The Wolves was the first result. Dream read through the lyrics, once, twice, three times, not believing what he was seeing. Had George been singing _this_ to him? The song was so _sad_ , so needy and desperate and wanting. Why was George singing this? Was it even related to Dream? Could it be?

Dream dropped the song into his queue and lay back to listen (with headphones, as always).

It hit him like a ton of bricks. It was even more melancholic to hear. Slow synthesizer, gentle drums, and a mournful ballad type of sound. It made him want to hold George close to him and never let him go. It made him want to cry. 

Some part of him wanted to confront George right away, to ask him point blank, but he had to be absolutely sure. This was probably the right song, but what if it wasn’t, and Dream just made an asshole of himself? It was a super creepy thing to accuse someone of, and George could easily just deny it. No, he had to be absolutely, positively certain of what was happening before he did anything.

~~~

Another week passed with no chances. Dream was really a heavy sleeper, and he really didn’t want to do the Monster strat again, because that would look even weirder the second time. He was forced to wait for a natural opportunity to come by before he could listen again, and it was driving him wild. The only good part was that it gave him time to listen to the song (over and over), which meant he basically had it memorized by the end of the week. It was actually a really good song, despite being really sad, and having it memorized would help him be sure whether or not it was the song George was singing.

The night he heard George again, he honestly just got lucky. There was a big, potentially controversial, video coming out the next day, and he simply couldn’t sleep. His mind was just racing, going over every minute of the video (which he also had memorized), and trying to find any snags that he could think of, any moment where pushing the boundary became going too far.

He was startled out of this intense train of thought by George gently nudging him and whispering his name. For a moment, he was annoyed to be interrupted, and he almost told George as much, but, thankfully, his brain caught up and kept him quiet.

George had a desperate grip on Dream’s shirt already, barely even testing before falling into his little ritual again. It seemed to be more needy and urgent than usual, and Dream wondered why.

 _I will love you when there’s nothing left  
_ _I will love you when there’s nothing else  
_ _I will hold you when there’s nothing left to say_  
 _I will love you  
I will love you if you stay_

George sang quietly, and Dream could hear all of it, even the parts George didn’t manage to vocalize. Knowing the lyrics helped it fit into his head, and his brain filled in the rest. He did lose some pieces to a choked sob or an external noise, but he was sure about the song now.

Did this mean George was in love with him too?

~~~

Even being sure of what George had been saying, there was no easy way to confront him about it. Dream had been in love with George for a _long_ time, before they had even made YouTube channels together. He had long ago gotten used to swallowing it down, shoving it aside so he could be a good friend.

It wasn’t easy to think there could be more, after so much denial.

Days passed, and he had no ideas on how to do it. He considered playing the song out loud, just to see what George would do, but that would give it away. Neither of them just played music. That’s what headphones were for. If he set up a speaker and just started playing the song George had been cry-singing into his chest, it would definitely be too obvious.

The only thing he could do was listen to the song, over and over, and brood, watching George at every moment he could, waiting for him to do the thing that would allow Dream to finally confess his feelings.

Eventually, Dream just kind of fell back into the routine. He had spent years ignoring his feelings for George. He could ignore the strange, lonely song whispered into his heart. He had gotten very good at ignoring.

~~~

Weeks passed, and Dream let himself forget entirely. There was no way it meant what he so desperately wanted it to mean. He was biased because of his own desires, which he had not confessed to _anyone_ , so he just pushed it down. There was no one to talk to about it, and he couldn’t start telling people. Sometimes, he would need to have a good old ice-cream-fueled-tear-fest in front of romantic movies, but otherwise, he just pretended it wasn’t there.

He kept listening to the song, though. It was a small comfort, a place where he could pretend that George was in love with him for four minutes at a time. He would pull it up randomly, dropping it into his queue whenever he needed to hear it. He didn’t need to worry about George seeing it, since he never used Spotify, and no one else would know what the song was referring to.

That was a problem though. He forgot that he had shared his Spotify with his fans, and they didn’t know why he was listening to it. He was listening to it at least half the time he was online, sometimes just repeating it over and over. They might have let it go, but it was so sad, and it became a kind of secret conspiracy throughout the DreamNotFound community.

Was this song about George?

Funnily enough, it was about George, technically, though not quite in the way that the fans thought it was. Dream would have laughed if he wasn’t so terrified. He thought maybe if he didn’t address it, it would go away, but it didn’t. His complete silence on the song (especially after having been so open about everything else) just made the conspiracy theory grow, until it blew up to a full fledged meme in the DNF fandom.

It never became as popular as Heat Waves (because there was no fic attached), but it definitely spread.

Dream watched in horror as the meme boomed throughout every platform. Tiktoks with the song as the sound, tweets with “I will love you, I will hold you,” and YouTube animatics of Dream and George pining over each other to the lyrics. It was never ending.

And somehow, George didn’t see it. Dream was the luckiest man in the world, because George was too busy, and he dropped off the internet, which he did occasionally, just in time to miss the meme completely. Dream started to breathe easier as it finally began to die off.

The final nail in the coffin for the meme was a new chapter of “Heat Waves” being released. Everyone panicked about that, and “Lowland Hum” fell back into oblivion. Dream felt safe, and allowed himself to forget again.

Until George’s next stream. He hadn’t streamed since before the meme had blown up (thankfully), and Dream was sure it had died down enough that it wouldn’t come up in a dono. It might pop up in chat, but chat moved so quickly that it would be easy to miss it. He was a little anxious, but he was sure it would be fine.

The donation popped up at around an hour into the stream “George, Dream won’t tell us, but maybe you know. Why has Dream been listening to Lowland Hum on repeat for the last several weeks?”

George had been streaming long enough to mostly contain his expression, but his eyes did bug out for just a moment. “Um, I dunno. Is this another fic or something? I, uh, I haven’t heard about it. I suppose you’ll have to ask Dream.”

Dream’s reaction had been much less contained, though thankfully, he wasn’t live on camera. He had nearly dropped his phone, and his mouth had fallen open. He had been so sure he would be in the clear! “Oh, yeah, I guess I should finally answer the question. It’s just a good song that I heard. No big deal. I’m just a little obsessed right now.”

“Really? Maybe I’ll check it out…”

Dream didn’t know what to say to that, honestly. He just watched George fall back into his stage persona and tried to ignore how George’s hands shook off camera.

George was nothing if not dedicated to his fans. He kept going for at least another hour, even after a few more donos came through about the song. Dream could see the tense set to his shoulders and the way his leg just kept bouncing, but these were things the chat couldn’t see.

He wished he had just talked to George about it first.

George was saying his goodbyes, trying to end as slow as he usually did, instead of just cutting the camera to interrogate Dream. He had to put on a good show, otherwise the fans might figure something out, and there was no way they could clarify that.

Finally, George shut down the stream, meticulously logged out of every single platform he could, and turned to look at Dream. “So, you’ve been listening to Lowland Hum?”

“You have a beautiful singing voice, George,” Dream blurted. The moment it passed his lips, he regretted it, and he wasn’t sure why he had said it. He would take it back in a moment if he could have.

“What the _fuck?_ ” George looked like he was going to vomit or faint, and he fell back against his chair despite himself.

“Sorry! Sorry! That was weird! I just… I don’t know.”

“You’ve known about it for _weeks_ and you said nothing?”

“I didn’t know what it meant! I didn’t want to assume!”

George’s hands fell over his eyes as he leaned back in the chair, dangerously close to falling over backwards. “You didn’t want to assume the intention behind me crying and whispering that I loved you into your body while you slept?”

“Uh… Sometimes it’s just like that?”

“Dream, you are the dumbest person I have ever met. Seriously, you are such an idiot that it astounds me.”

“But you love me, right?”

George stood, suddenly, and muttered, “I’m actually leaving,” before heading for the door. 

“Wait, no, why?!”

“I’m not going to just sit here and be mocked!”

“I’m not mocking you! I’m just…”

George scoffed and kept walking, out of the stream room, through the living room, and across to his bedroom before closing the door tightly behind him. He didn’t say another word.

Dream trailed him, begging him to stop, but got the door closed in his face. Knocking garnered no response. “George, please, please, can we talk about this?”

Nothing.

“George, I promise, I’m not making fun of you.”

Still nothing.

“George, I swear, I really just didn’t know what to do with the information. How do you talk about something like that?”

“Oh! So you just hear me singing to you, look up the song, and listen to it for _weeks_ until the fans notice, because you couldn’t ask me?” George’s voice sounded muffled and a bit choked up, like he was crying. “So our entire fanbase can make a meme about it to the point that people pay to ask about it?”

“George, this is not a prank. I would never!”

“Come on, George, just tell me you love me!” George mimicked, “I love you!”

“I do love you, George…”

“Whatever.”

Dream sighed, leaning his head against the wooden door, completely unsure of what to do, until it hit him. He cleared his throat and sang, “ _I will love you when there’s nothing left._ ”

“Shut _up_ , Dream.”

“ _I will love you when there’s nothing else._ ”

“Stop messing with me!”

“George, I’m not messing with you! Please just come out and actually talk to me!”

No response

“Fine,” Dream said, “I can sing all night. _I will hold you when there’s nothing left to say_.”

“Dream, please…”

“Please what, George?”

“Don’t… You can’t… Please."

Dream was genuinely not sure what else he could do. “George, how else can I prove to you that I love you? Like genuinely _love_ you?”

The door opened, just a crack, and a single, tear stained brown eye poked through, cautiously.

Dream continued, pouring his years of love into it and holding out his hand. “ _I will love you_.”

George opened the door all the way, still looking furious, but softening gradually. Delicately, gently, slowly, so as not to spook George, Dream reached out further, until he was about to touch his friend’s face. George’s eyes narrowed, but he leaned into the touch warily. With permission given, Dream cupped George’s cheek, wiping away tears with his thumb and pulling them closer together.

“ _I will love you if you stay_.” Dream finished, with George only a few inches from him.

“What are you doing, Dream…?”

“George, I _love_ you. I have loved you for a long time.” With that, he leaned down, carefully inviting George for a kiss.

George threw his arms around Dream and pressed their lips together, as if it was something he needed to survive. Dream was surprised, and actually stumbled back from the force of it, but he embraced George, gathering him into his arms, and kissed him back.

They didn’t come up for air for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> As you might have guessed, this was inspired by the song "Lowland Hum" by Out Come the Wolves. It's a great song! Feel free to check it out!
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLw_tF21ZyY


End file.
